It Was Cement To Be - Weather Holds for BCITO Trades Day

The Building and Construction Industry Training Organisation (BCITO) held their third annual Trades Day promoting the construction industry to secondary school students across Dunedin. What started out as the worst frost of winter so far eventually lifted and revealed a beautiful sunny winters day for the tour around Dunedin in which students visited five construction sites to gain insight into what being a tradie actually means. 

Students from Otago Boys, Bayfield, John McGlashan, Kaikorai Valley and most excitingly - Otago Girls and Queens - had the amazing opportunity to talk to tradies face to face about what the construction industry is like and have a try of the different tasks involved with each career. This was the first year that women had been involved with Dunedin's Trades Day and it was exciting to have them along to experience what has traditionally been a male-dominated industry. Currently only 5% of trade staff are women. 

Miss Rapson took 10 of our Year 11 McGlashan students along to experience the trades. The hope is that we are targeting students who are interested in the trades before they select their course for Year 12 and 13 when they begin to refine their subjects. Students had the opportunity to 'try before they buy' at this event to see if trades might really be something they might be interested in. From here they can choose the subjects that will help them get into this industry - including applying for the Gateway programme which has a work experience component. 

The students were split into groups of a mix of students from different schools and had a great day getting their hands dirty doing various jobs such as brick and block laying, prepping timber in a joinery factory, plastering, even putting up wallpaper! There was some fierce competition between Otago Boys and JMC at the brick and block laying site, needless to say, the JMC crew came out on top in the end with the straightest column! BCITO's Trade Day was a huge success and we look forward to offering the experience again to Year 11 students in 2018. 

For those students who are interested in the trades or finding out more about Gateway, we would like to invite you along to the Gateway Information Seminar in Term 3 at course selection evening. This will be held 22nd August at 7pm in the ELC.